Jarvis
Cocker has released a new album, which
in the spirit of the times has turned its back on
the melodic (although not the melancholic), and
rejected sophistication and complexity in favour
of a stripped-down rock and roll feel, perhaps partly
inspired by recording engineer Steve
Albini.

This,
you may recall, was as predicted when he previewed
songs from the new album at the end of last year
at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The reception
for Further Complications has been mixed, some rejecting
its rawness as a backward step, others embracing
it. Not a few have suggested that the music, like
the album’s title, reflects a difficult time
in Cocker’s personal affairs, if not a mid-life
crisis for the 46-year-old.

On
this short UK tour to promote the album, Cocker
has turned away from the West and brought us to
Troxy, the rather unlikely venue (and former theatre
of dreams) in the East End’s Limehouse, once
in the heart of the capital’s docklands, and
the place where cholera first struck in London in
1832, as Cocker reminds us. This last fact was about
the only thing all evening that diverted the two
sturdy security guards in front of us from their
task of managing access to the mosh, and keeping
the path to the raised area of the ground floor
clear. In fact, the security are everywhere; it’s
a hugely over-staffed venue, which, nice though
the carpeted floors are, could do with investing
a bit more in some basic facilities (the woefully
inadequate three urinals guarantee lengthy queues
and ill-humour all evening).

But
the sound is pretty good, or certainly good enough
for Jarvis’s new stuff, driven by the two
guitarists Tim McColl and Martin Craft. The set
begins in uncompromising fashion with ‘Angela’,
followed by the ‘spare post-industrial rock’
(as my notebook says) of ‘Further complications’,
and doesn’t look back.

Cocker
joins the stage brandishing a cane, then jumps,
kicks, postures and philosophises when he’s
not bellowing out his lyrics, which despite the
stripped-back sound retain his trademark wit, sophistry
and slyness, and not a tad of explicit sexuality
(‘Fuckingsong’). At its best the set
is glorious; think eighty-five per cent Jarvis Cocker,
ten per cent Psychedelic Furs (particularly when
the saxophone is introduced) and five per cent rocking
Roxy Music and you might get an idea. The set moved
between the new album and some of the highlights
from his first eponymous album, ‘Big Julie’,
‘Black magic’, and in the encore ‘Fat
kids’. And for the most part it’s all
very good stuff, though ‘You’re in my
eyes’, an inexplicably self-indulgent disco
pastiche, is as weak live as it is on the album.
Still it’s at least an eight out of ten gig,
which is good enough for me. - Nick Morgan (photographs
by Kate)